Gun Violence Statistics by State

US homicide rates by firearm are relatively high compared to other advanced countries. In 2012, Unites States had the 19th highest firearm homicide rate in the world (2.83 per 100,000 population). As a comparison, Japan, Norway and UK had some of the lowest firearm murder rates in the world (between 0 and 0.4 per 100,000 people). Over the past 10 years, deaths from gun-related violence, including suicides, murders and unintentional shootings, varied across the USA.

Download national gun violence records (1966-2016)

Although there are some online resources that provide gun violence records over the years, getting a complete database is a difficult task. We have combed through the major sites such as Stanford Libraries, GunViolenceArchive.org and Mother Jones. We have consolidated and updated the records, then removed any duplicates. Now you can download this Excel file which contains a compilation of firearm-related violence records, including historical data of U.S. gun fatalities and injuries until 30 September 2016. The spreadsheet consists of:

Incident date, address, city, state, total death and injured, brief commentary, venue and a flag whether it is a school-related gun shooting

Three charts that shows gun death and injuries by state, as well as gun violence trend-line

Total 1,880 records in the spreadsheet, which includes national gun violence records from 1966 to 2016. You can easily filter the data to customize your analysis. We will endeavour to update this data pack every month.

You will need a special code to open the spreadsheet, which will be provided after you follow instructions below.

States with the highest and lowest gun murder rates

Data obtained from Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2011, shows a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were gun-related. Homicides made up around 2% of all firearm-related crimes. There were 11,101 firearm homicides in 2011, which is a decrease by 39% from a high of 18,253 in 1993. Refer to chart below for illustration of these trends.

According to the data, the top 5 states with the highest gun-related death rates were District of Columbia, Louisiana, Missouri, Maryland and South Carolina. According to the Violence Policy Center, the nation-wide gun murder rate was 10.64 per 100,000 people.

Gun violence heat map

The following heat map illustrates all firearm violence by state, based on data obtained from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Using the colour coded map, you can easily find which state has the highest or lowest gun murder rates. Click on the map area to see more details.

Top 5 states with the highest number of gun deaths

Based on the data we compiled from Stanford Libraries, Mother Jones, GunViolenceArchive.org and our internal research, the top 5 states with the highest number of gun deaths (2012 to 2016) are:

California had 251 gun deaths from January 2012 to September 2016

Florida had 210 gun fatalities

Texas had 208 gun deaths

Georgia had 114 fatalities

Illinois had 97 gun deaths

This ranking has not taken into account the rate per population. To see detailed gun death statistics on 50 states and the District of Columbia, refer to the following chart:

Top 5 states with the highest number of gun injuries

The data also shows the following 5 states with the highest number of gun injuries from 2012 to 2016:

192 people have been injured in California from gun violence between January 2012 and September 2016

Illinois had 138 gun-related injuries

Florida had 125 injuries

Texas had 105 injuries

Georgia had 90 injuries

Refer to the graph below to see total gun-related injuries per state:

Gun violence statistics: what the trend now looks like

Between 2012 and 2016, the exponential trend line of gun violence incidents have been increasing. Refer to the following chart for illustration. From 1 January 2016 to 30 September 2016, there have been 546 gun deaths and 1,574 gun-related injuries from 423 gun violence incidents in America.

Please read the instructions above to download the data used in this article.

Relationship between gun ownership and gun murder rate

According to the comparison between gun ownership and gun murder rate per state, there is no direct relationship. Here is why:

Comparison between the top 10 states with the highest gun ownership and the top 10 states with the highest gun deaths indicates Mississippi being the only state that might have a direct relationship. The remaining 9 states didn’t have any indication of co-relationship.

Comparison between the top 10 states with the lowest gun ownership and the top 10 states with the lowest gun deaths shows Hawaii being the only state that might have a direct relationship. The remaining 9 states didn’t have any indication of co-relationship.

However, some crime experts believed that the weaker the gun laws and the higher the rate of gun ownership in a given state, the more deaths from gun violence that the state will have.

Interesting facts about gun crimes

Some highlights revealed by the Office of Justice Programs at the Bureau of Justice Statistics on their recent report in May 2013: